Nothing can come together until everything has fallen apart.

Oh Yeah! The reason that i wrote the title is that this week it seemed like everything broke. My Belt snapped in half, a seam came out of my pants, one of my shoes seam came out and all that stuff. It only seemed to happen when i was discouraged though, Haha, so I better stop being discouraged and get back to work! Everything broke this week, but it all seemed to come together.

Bonjour ma famille et mes amies!

This week I've heard a lot about writing home spiritual experiences, but if i just wrote home spiritual experiences you'd miss a lot of what's happening. That's why I'm going to write a big plates history account and an itty bitty plates account of the spiritual stuff that's happened this week! For those that don't know what I'm talking about, it's the whole big plates of the book of mormon being the history and the little plates being the spiritual portion.

BIG and possibly hilarious plates

Alright, so since P-day is monday i'll start with Tuesday

Tuesday

Alright, this is possibly the best day of my entire mission. Tuesday we started out normal with class and all that good stuff, and then we had a medical meeting so that we could get into Belgium. Funny thing is, Belgium makes you take a parasite test to get into the country and a blood test for diseases. First we went to the nurses office and got our blood taken (I even have some pictures!). Then, we had to poop in a cup. That's right, I had to poop in a cup. As much as i think poop is one of the most hilarious things in the world, this was an incredibly traumatic experience made even worse by the fact that while i was doing it my shorts fell in the toilet. we were about to exercise, so luckily I had spandex on i could run back into the room in, but it was still pretty embarrassing. It was possibly the worst and best thing i've ever had to do in my whole life. I also got tricked into calling myself ugly in Danish (The black guy in our district, Elder Pederson, got me to say it to another Elder from Denmark). We had a devotional from Don R. Clarke and i got to sing in the choir, but more of that in my spiritual portion. We also found out the Elder Ghirelli (the brazillian elder who's super quiet) swooped in and stole a girl that had been engaged before he left on his mission. They broke up before he left, but she still writes him every week. It's funny because you'd never expect something like that from a guy as shy and quiet as he is! Unfortunately Tuesday was the first day i said crap out loud. When I woke up I thought I had gotten up late so i yelled, CRAP ON A CRAPSTICK! It was funny, but I was a little upset about it.

Wednesday

Wednesday was incredibly uneventful other than the fact we got a new teacher named brother Mayne and we played some B-ball. Other than that it was freezing and I thought i was going to die, but it might have been the first time i was really bored...

Thursday

On Thursday we sat in class most of the day, I learned how to speak some German from Sister Grunke (the German sister in our district), but I couldn't say it without an Indian accent, so I'm guessing that I'm not really cut out for German. Other than that i nicknamed an Elder going to the French-Tahitian mission Papa bear because he's like 6'8" and he asked for a hug so i jumped into his arms. He literally held me three feet above the ground. It was a little scary.

Friday

FRIDAY WAS AWESOME. We got to go to San Fransisco to get our visas from the French Consulate, which was cool in itself. But the best part was that afterwards we got to go to Pier 39, from which you can see Albatraz, The Golden Gate Bridge, HUNDREDS of sea lions, and the sea (which I've secretly been missing a lot). I bought a little keychain that has a sea lion on it.I also met a really awesome elder named Elder Edmund. His family owns a T-shirt printing company and he's really awesome. We Had to wake up at 1:30 in the morning though, and we went back and forth from Salt Lake to San Fran, so by the time i got to bed that night i thought i was going to die! It's alright though, it was fun. We also gave our bus driver (Edgar) a book of Mormon. I talked to him for a couple hours while we were driving and found out he was from the Phillipines and he had been driving for 18 years (longer than i've been born!) He was really awesome though! He thanked us for the book of Mormon and said that even though he'd been driving Elders for 7 years, nobody had given him a book of Mormon yet.

Saturday

Saturday was pretty uneventful compared to Friday. I named the red haired Elder next to us who's going to a haitian creole mission Elder Gumdrop (Because he's the GINGERbreadman! HAHA, get it?) all that really happened than that was Elder Oviatt was way too distracting. He's getting a little bit too loud, but I'm hoping that i can get him to calm down a little.

Sunday

Alright, Sunday was so super spiritual that all I'm going to say in this section is that it was fast sunday, i was super hungry, The Provo Temple President, Robert H. Daines, and his wife spoke, and then we watched the Character of Christ video by David Bednar.

Little and spiritual plates

Alright, so I'm going to talk about four experiences

1- Don R. Clarke's talk was really really really good.He talked about emailing home about spiritual experiences and finding the house with the red sign (which is basically just finding people to teach from anywhere). His talk really inspired me to organize what I write in these emails, who I write, and the whole Edgar experience.

2- Brother Merrill and the book of Mormon. Brother Merrill basically had a lecture with my district on the book of Mormon. We talked about the Godhead being three distinct beings and the Divine Investiture of Power. For those of you who have no idea what that is, don't worry about it yet, for those of you who do, you know how awesome it is!

3- President Daines talk was really awesome and talked a lot about respecting women. I had already been thinking, gotta stop thinking about girls, but his talk really inspired me to respect them. By being more respectful to women, it really helps any kinds of thoughts, no matter how small.

4- The Character of Christ by Bednar. This might have possibly been the single most spiritual thing i've ever seen in my whole life. If you haven't seen it, see it. It really made me think of how selfish I've been in my life and inspired a lot of change in me. It was incredible and I hope that I don't forget it.

Anyways, I have a lot of work to do

Au Revoir from your Elder,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

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